Computer-implemented search engines have been developed to return at least one search result to a client computing device in response to receipt of a query from the client computing device, wherein the at least one search result is identified by a computer-implemented search engine as being relevant to the query. Conventionally, search results returned by search engines are in the form of a ranked list of hyperlinks, wherein the hyperlinks point to web pages that comprise information that is found by the search engine to be relevant to the query. More recently, search engines have been developed to provide “instant answers” to a relatively small subset of fact-seeking queries, wherein an instant answer answers the fact-seeking query and is displayed, together with search results, on a search engine results page (SERP). Accordingly, the user need not navigate away from the SERP to receive an answer to the fact-seeking query issued by the user.
The conventional approach for identifying instant answers to fact-seeking queries has been labor-intensive and limited to a relatively small number of queries. For instance, with respect to fact-seeking queries related to weather (e.g., “what is the weather going to be like tomorrow”), the search engine is directed to a previously identified website or service to allow for the query to be answered. As noted above, however, this is a very limited approach, as this previously identified website or service fails to include information that answers fact-seeking queries that are not related to weather. Another exemplary approach for identifying instant answers to fact-seeking queries involves manual review of some threshold number of most popular queries, identifying fact-seeking queries amongst these popular queries, learning answers to these fact-seeking queries, and placing the answers in a table. Hence, when the search engine receives a query, the search engine searches the table to ascertain if the query is included therein, and then (when the query is included in the table) returns the answer from the table that corresponds to the query as an instant answer for the query. This approach, however, is both limited and labor-intensive, as the search engine only is able to provide instant answers to popular fact-seeking queries, and further as the answers to these popular queries are identified manually.